The Age of Reason Thomas Paine (beach read TXT) 📖

O earth
’Tis God himself that calls attention forth.

Another instance I shall quote is from the mournful Jeremiah, to which I shall add two other lines, for the purpose of carrying out the figure, and showing the intention of the poet.

“O, that mine head were waters and mine eyes
Were fountains flowing like the liquid skies;
Then would I give the mighty flood release
And weep a deluge for the human race.”91

↩

1 Chronicles 15:1. —⁠Conway ↩

1 Samuel 18:10. —⁠Conway ↩

As those men who call themselves divines and commentators are very fond of puzzling one another, I leave them to contest the meaning of the first part of the phrase, that of an evil spirit of God. I keep to my text. I keep to the meaning of the word “prophesy.” ↩

This paragraph is not in the French work. —⁠Conway ↩

“A man named Jesus, and he about thirty years, chose us out.”

—⁠Gospel according to the Hebrews

—⁠Conway ↩

τεχτων, a skilled worker in wood, stone, or iron; a builder; not necessarily a carpenter. —⁠Conway ↩

One of the few errors traceable to Paine’s not having a Bible at hand while writing Part I. There is no indication that the family was poor, but the reverse may in fact be inferred. —⁠Conway ↩

French: Je réponds hardiment que nous ne sommes point condamnés à ce malheur. (“I boldly answer that we are not condemned to this misfortune.”) —⁠Conway ↩

The French translator has substituted for this a version of the same psalm by Jean Baptiste Rousseau. —⁠Conway ↩

The French here has plutôt (“rather”). —⁠Conway ↩

French: La suprême intelligence instead of “God.” —⁠Conway ↩

French: La théologie naturelle. —⁠Conway ↩

In the French is added: et que même, par l’ignorance que les gouvernemens modernes ont répandue, il soit très-rare aujourd’hui, que ces personnes s’en doutent (“and, such is the ignorance prevailing under modern governments, it is now even very rare for such persons to think about it”). —⁠Conway ↩

French: C’est un mensonge, une fraude pieuse. —⁠Conway ↩

French: ce nonsense arithmetique. The words “Christian system” do not occur in the clause. —⁠Conway ↩

Instead of “Christian systems of faith,” the French has ce tissu d’ absurdités. —⁠Conway ↩

French: aride. —⁠Conway ↩

I cannot discover the source of this statement concerning the ancient author whose Irish name Feirghill was Latinized into Virgilius. The British Museum possesses a copy of the work (Decalogiunt) which was the pretext of the charge of heresy made by Boniface, Archbishop of Mayence, against Virgilius, Abbot⁠—bishop of Salzburg, These were leaders of the rival “British” and Roman parties, and the British champion made a countercharge against Boniface of “irreligious practices.” Boniface had to express a “regret,” but none the less pursued his rival. The Pope, Zachary II, decided that if his alleged “doctrine, against God and his soul, that beneath the earth there is another world, other men, or sun and moon,” should be acknowledged by Virgilius, he should be excommunicated by a Council and condemned with canonical sanctions. Whatever may have been the fate involved by condemnation with “canonicis sanctionibus,” in the middle of the eighth century, it did not fall on Virgilius. His accuser, Boniface, was martyred, 755, and it is probable that Virgilius harmonied his Antipodes with orthodoxy. The gravamen of the heresy seems to have been the suggestion that there were men not of the progeny of Adam. Virgilius was made Bishop of Salzburg in 768. He bore until his death, 789, the curious title, “Geometer and Solitary,” or “lone wayfarer” (Solivagus). A suspicion of heresy clung to his memory until 1233, when he was raised by Gregory IX to sainthood beside his accuser, St. Boniface. —⁠Conway ↩

It is impossible for us now to know at what time the heathen mythology began; but it is certain, from the internal evidence that it carries, that it did not begin in the same state or condition in which it ended. All the gods of that mythology, except Saturn, were of modern invention. The supposed reign of Saturn was prior to that which is called the heathen mythology, and was so far a species of theism that it admitted the belief of only one God. Saturn is supposed to have abdicated the government in favour of his three sons and one daughter, Jupiter, Pluto, Neptune, and Juno; after this, thousands of other gods and demigods were imaginarily created, and the calendar of gods increased as fast as the calendar of saints and the calendar of courts have increased since.

All the corruptions that have taken place, in theology and in religion have been produced by admitting of what man calls “revealed religion.” The mythologists pretended to more revealed religion than the Christians do. They had their oracles and their priests, who were supposed to receive and deliver the word of God verbally on almost all occasions.

Since then all corruptions down from Moloch to modern predestinarianism, and the human sacrifices of the heathens to the Christian sacrifice of the Creator, have been produced by admitting of what is called “revealed religion,” the most effectual means to prevent all such evils and impositions is, not to admit of any other revelation than that which is manifested in the book of Creation., and to contemplate the Creation as the only true and real word of God that ever did or ever will exist; and everything else called the word of God is fable and imposition. ↩

French: ce